Innovation is vital for productivity growth. Creating new products and services and improving production processes, means increased efficiency of production that ultimately underpins rising living standards. Businesses therefore need to seek constant innovation and improvement.
The Productivity Institute supports action-based research projects, bringing together academics and business organisations as well as public and not-for-profit organisations together to develop new ways to get on a productivity improvement path.
Our 2023-24 cohort of Business Innovation research has focused on within-firm decision making and strategy to improve business performance and productivity, including key functions such as Digital & IT, Finance, HR and Marketing and Operations.
It was found that firms commonly track KPIs such as profit, margins, employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Better understanding the link between those KPIs and productivity, helps organisations to address productivity as part of their strategy.
Functional area often have different interpretations and priorities of productivity and its drivers. Greater alignment of priorities and activities supports better performance.
Enterprise Research Centre / Aston Business School
The University of Manchester
Newcastle University
University of the West of England
Leeds Beckett University
Northumbria University
University of Worcester
University of Salford
University of Nottingham
Loughborough University
University of Essex
University of Cambridge
Leeds Trinity University
University of Hertfordshire
More research on Business Innovation is currently underway and we expect new insights over the course of 2026/27.
Manchester Metropolitan University
Aston University
University of Birmingham
University of Warwick
Oxford Brookes University